When you live where I live, you don't usually use public transportation if you can help it -- you might celebrate a couple of birthdays just getting from Point A to Point B.
But there are places I can go directly on the bus, and sometimes the experience is amazing.
Not that long ago, a kid got on the bus at our neighborhood high school and turned out to be one of the most inspirational people I've met in a life that's covered the world.
I don't even know why we began talking, but because of his slightly accented English, I asked him what country he was from.
"Somalia," he said, and flashed a brilliant but split-second smile. "I had quite a trip to be here."
I commented that he seemed pretty fluent in English, since he was breezing right through his school enrollment form.
"Oh yes, I know a lot of English, and also German, Russian and Swedish -- as well as Wolof, but nobody speaks that here," he said, "and enough to get by in Spanish, Italian and Turkish."
Get to know Pete after the orange squiggle.
Naturally, I asked him how he knew so many languages.
He flashed that smile again and hesitated, as if he didn't know whether to "bore" me with the story or not.
"Well, when the boxes of donated books would come from America, nobody wanted the language books, so I got all of them."
His whole village had been basically destroyed during Somalia's civil war. During the time he studied languages, his family lived under a tree -- for seven years.
"It was really nice for us because we had shade," he said. "Everybody else lived in the sun."
One day while the whole family was gone to carry the relief food home, somebody cut down their tree for firewood.
"Since we had nothing left, my parents decided we'd walk to Ethiopia. They thought we'd be safer there," he said.
But they arrived in Ethiopia just as widespread violence was breaking out in that country; as foreigners, their situation was worse than it had been in Somalia.
So they walked to Kenya, where almost immediately they joined some sort of refugee camp. Eventually, they were taken to Germany and from there to the U.S.
Tracing the family's path, relief workers told them they must have walked 600 miles.
Speaking slower now, he told me: "I feel like I must be the luckiest person in the world. Of all the boys from my village, I am the only one with both parents still alive -- the ... ONLY ... ONE.
"Now here I am in America, with both parents, and it's a miracle -- every day in this country is a miracle. We don't have to walk all day to carry food and water; we even have a room to live in," his tears were starting by this time.
"I'm always afraid I'll wake up or somebody will take it away from me, but I'm really here -- I'm in America and I still can't believe it ... " And his voice trailed off because he actually began to cry softly.
I didn't know what to say, and we soon reached his stop, and that was the end of it.
I never even found out his real name ("Pete" is easy for Americans to pronounce and remember), but when I think about him, and I often do, I know America will be in good hands because we're attracting people of Pete's caliber from around the world.
The kid learned eight new languages studying thrown-away books and living under a tree! I get frustrated over spending too long in the checkout lane, while here's someone who faced real problems while very young and turned them to his advantage.
We're getting the people from Mexico and Central America who have the initiative to walk for weeks or months to seek a better life in a strange country -- Mexico gets to keep the ones who lack that incredible drive.
We need to remember: America still inspires inspirational people, and they'll inspire Americans if we let them.
If you have the slightest trace of anti-immigrant bigotry, I'm sorry for you. You should take a bus ride with Pete from Somalia.